


Build My Gallows High

by used_songs



Category: Out of the Past (1947), Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 12:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/used_songs/pseuds/used_songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Much of the dialog is stolen outright from the movie "Out of the Past/Build My Gallows High"<br/>AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Build My Gallows High

1.

So he left and he came back and he left again and he died and he was resurrected and he died again and again and again. And he rose up from a bed of certain and permanent death and I was hiding from him because I couldn't hide in him and I didn't even know until he walked in that he had come back. And I betrayed him and then I was betrayed and I betrayed him again. And he was gone. And he came back.

It just seems to circle around with no forward progress. It makes me dizzy, and I can't seem to keep my balance. I need to breathe. I want and I don't want. I know and I don't know. And I am giddy and serious and everything in between. And I don't know myself – I've lost all my former pieces and … I don't know. Because when he touches me I fall and fall and fall. Fall into the shadows, the shades of darker gray that surround everything.

So I run. I leave and I don't come back, at least for now. I just put physical distance in the place of the barriers that are falling in me, the ones that have kept him a little distant from my heart.

UNIT calls, asking for a short term liaison on some cryptography project, some project they took over from Torchwood One and have only now just gotten around to. I don't care what it is. I'll go. I leave to get away from him, from the suffocation of being held tight to his side, tucked under his arm like a possession. I'm his for the taking and he knows it; I spin dizzy in an orbit around him and when he disappears I fall into the gravity well. Then when he returns I'm in danger of smashing, crashing, burning. I need the space, for just a little while, to pull myself together.

I leave, like falling backwards and without effort.

I am running away – as far from him as I can get and still pretend to be me. The lost me, the one that has also died several times. The one that cannot resist him – fascinated. The one who wears the sturdy armor of his job and doesn't let anyone in anymore, even when they hang there with their fingers in the cracks, pulling at … at me. I never used to be so inarticulate. But, let's face it, I never used to talk about myself. Even to myself. I just did my duty. I wore the calm expression, laid over my face like a cool mask.

The room is dark where I am working, my hands lit by the glow from the computer screen, dust particles shimmering in the glare. It's quiet, just the measured click of machinery and distant voices in the next office. Peaceful. Still. I like it here. I can just be the work, the puzzle to be solved, the task. I can just be the hands.

But he calls me up, as if we had never been apart, and asks when I will return to him. "Ianto, are you done there? Because we need you back here at the Hub." I can't hear any background noise; he's calling me from the vacuum. He tries to make a joke about coffee, about the files being disordered. I wait until he's quiet.

I say, "I don't know." I hit enter and wait for my results.

He replies softly, so that I can barely hear, "If you ask me to go to you, you know I'll have to follow." Is he joking?

"Sir? What-" I bite off the question and stare at the computer monitor. "What?"

"Come back, Ianto, or I'll have to come for you." He hangs up.

I hang up and switch off my mobile. I try not to think about him again. He doesn't come for me.

The project finishes and I return to Cardiff. It's like I was never gone, and no one takes any notice of me, or at least that's how it seems. I sink back into the shadows and am invisible. I return the archives to pristine order, seeking solace.

It's evening. The others have gone. I take him coffee. I set it on his desk. He looks at me and gestures for me to sit. I sit. Stripped down to the essentials.

Jack leans back in his chair, regarding me with ancient blue eyes. "You just sit and stay inside yourself. You wait for me to talk." He considers me again and I feel naked, though I don't show it. "I like that."

"Well," I reply flippantly, although it's true. "I've never found out much listening to myself."

"I think it speaks of hidden passion. Complexity. I think I hardly know you."

"You can think what you like." I need to stay hidden from him. "Will that be all?"

He nods his head for me to go, dissatisfied. Perhaps I am not worth the trouble I cause him. Good.

I turn to face him in the doorway. "Did you really miss me, Sir?" I don't know why I ask it. I guess to see what he will say. I guess because I ache more than I know.

"No more than I would miss my eyes." He pauses. "I want you back."

"I am back."

"You know what I mean, Ianto."

"Why?" I know he's vulnerable, he seems like it at least, but I remember wanting to hurt him. That's why I push. I remember needing space. That's why I push. I remember being broken open and then left behind. That's why I push.

"Can't you just let it go at that?" Jack replies with a touch of impatience, shuffling papers on his desk.

"I can let it all go, Sir," I say with crushing distance. He looks at me, really looks at me. He's angry now.

"Can you? Can you really?"

"I've had a lot of practice at letting go," I reply witheringly.

He looks down at his desk, dismissing me. "So have I."

A month or more later. I'm in the field with the others. Part of Jack's program to integrate me with the rest of the team. I just follow orders, try to anticipate what is needed. In the end, the team dropped off at their respective homes, it's just me … and Jack.

Jack says, stopping the SUV at the corner, "Maybe you want to go home, Ianto?" He looks at me. I can see him from the corner of my eye. It's night. The windows are fogging a little. The traffic light flashes wet reflections on the street.

I whisper without meeting his eyes, "Maybe I do. Maybe that's why I'm here."

He looks ahead, "Is it?" His hands flex on the steering wheel. He comes to a decision. "Come back to the Hub and have a drink with me."

I look over at him then, and he smiles. "Just a drink, Ianto. Just a drink. And maybe some conversation."

In his office,, Jack says, handing me the glass, "You're a strange one, Ianto Jones." He sits at his desk and I pull up a chair uncertainly.

"In what way?" I take a sip. Lean back. Try to relax. The lights are dim, and I'm tired. But I have been far tireder in my life.

"You don't ask questions, or at least very few. You don't even ask me what my name is." He plays with the liquid in his glass, swirling it gently.

I look at him steadily. "I never asked you because I didn't think I was supposed to know it wasn't Jack. You never told me about him, Sir. Tosh did." I take another sip.

"Or where I come from," he goes on, ignoring my jab.

I sigh. "Does it matter, Sir?"

"I guess not. But surely you wonder where I went … where I have come from."

I look at him steadily, "Maybe I'm thinking about where we're going."

He blinks and smiles at me encouragingly. "Long term thinking; I like that. You don't like it here … where we are now?" He downs his drink and pours another. I accept a refill from him.

"I don't know."

"Should I take you someplace else?' His words are fraught with meaning, if I can just decipher it.

"You'll find it very easy to take me anywhere, Sir," I reply and he looks at me like he is seeing me anew. I am falling, falling backward off the rooftop of the world and nothing can save me now.

 

2.

The others have left, tired of poker or just tired of being here. Or maybe because I've cleaned them out, egged on by Jack's shouts of laughter at each winning hand, each impeccable bluff. I'm good at bluffing; I've done it all my life. Jack throws money in the center of the table, spreading out his cards and grinning. He has been losing all night, which I don't understand. Isn't he supposed to be the conman?

Exasperated, I say, "That isn't the way to play it."

"Why not?"

"It isn't the way to win," I say from behind piles of my winnings, running a hand along the edge of the table to flick off the traces of dust there.

He looks at me steadily. "Is there a way to win?" He smiles broadly.

"Well, there's a way to lose more slowly."

"I prefer it like that. Don't you like to gamble?"

"Not against the house," I say gathering up the cards.

"Tell me why you're so hard to please, Ianto Jones," he says turning in his chair, taking the cards out of my hands, pulling me to him by my lapels and loosening my tie playfully, waiting for me to pull away.

"Take me where I can tell you," I say, and he looks at me with sudden heat in his eyes.

"You're the only one," he says huskily. "Do you believe me?"

I don't, but I say, "I don't care," and it's the truth.

"Are you afraid?" he asks me softly. He leans in closer, impossibly close. I can feel his heat.  
"I've been afraid of half the things I've ever done." How is it that I can talk when I can scarcely breathe?

"And this time?" His hand creeps up the side of my throat and rests against my pulse.

"I'm only afraid you might not want me in the end," I say nakedly, and he gasps.

"When you let down the barriers, you really let them down." He smiles at me. "I like that. Do you love me?"

"A little."

"A little?"

"A lot."

3.

"Ianto, I couldn't help it. I had to-"

Bitterly I turn and say to him, "You can never help anything can you? You're like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another. You can't help any thing you do."

He protests, "That's not fair."

"I can't help it, Jack. I'm here and now. Only for a little while. Why am I not enough for you?" I feel the moments of my life ticking away.

"Ianto …"

I turn away from him, though it costs me everything, "Just get out, will you? I have to sleep in this room. Just leave it where it all is. Get out."

I hear him leave, the key turning in the lock. He'll be back. Because I know I'll find myself on my knees to him one night soon.

4.

"Jack," I say quietly, unable to face him. "Why did you do this to me?"  
"Do what?" he asks scornfully. "You were in pieces before I met you." I move forward to stare through the window into the night.

"I hate you." My voice is so soft that I can barely hear myself. But my head is full of screaming, so perhaps I'm not speaking as quietly as I think. He certainly hears me.

"Are you sure, Ianto? Maybe it's love." He starts to get angry; I can hear it in his voice. "You have no idea what it is to be broken, Ianto. You think you do, but you really have no idea."

"And you do?" I respond acidly. "When nothing has ever scratched the shiny surface for you? Do you ever feel it down into your bones?" Because I have, I think. I have. Those things were etched into my bones, clenched into my flesh. "The first time they hurt you, maybe, Jack. The first time they killed you. But it's all a game for you now, until the end of time. We're just a game for you."

"You really can hate," he says, almost admiringly. "I find it strangely alluring," he leers.

I turn on him, anger burning down my face in streaks, caught in the half light of the room, "Go on; lie some more, Jack. Lie to me. Tell me how much you care."

"Ianto," he says helplessly, walking slowly toward me, the anger in him gone for the moment.

"What a fool you must think I am," I say, backing away until I touch glass. "I took you back. I should have kicked your teeth in."

"You'll break yourself, Ianto," he says softly. "And I'll still be here."

"I'm already broken, and you want me to feel sorry for you." I lean back against the window.

"You have to go all the way to find love, Ianto." He stands so close to me that it's difficult to know where I begin.

"I've been all the way," I spit. "It's overrated. Anything that ends with me on my knees in a pool of blood … it's not worth doing again." I cannot spend my life at Canary Wharf.

"It's the only thing I know, Ianto." He reaches for me, his fingers lightly brushing my cheek. "It's the only thing to keep the darkness at bay for a while. We all end up on our knees."

I shake my head blindly, and he continues.

"I want to walk out of the sun again and find you waiting. I want to sit in the same moonlight and tell you all the things I never talked to you about - till you don't hate me, till sometime you'll love again. If you're thinking of anyone else, don't. It wouldn't work. You're no good for anyone but me. We deserve each other."

And he kisses me softly, somehow here and so close that I can't pull away. Smiling broadly, he slides one hand up under my collar and gradually loosens my tie. I can hear the soft brush of the silk running over the rough cotton. His hands stroke down the length of my tie as he unknots it, pulling me slightly forward as he does. Keeping me off balance again. I feel my heart thump, and I fight the urge to close my eyes. He has opened the top few buttons of my shirt and is running a hand over the back of my neck, inside my collar. His hand is warm.

"I never told you I was anything but what I am. You just wanted to imagine who I was."

I swallow.

"But can't that be enough, Ianto?"

"Oh, Jack. What does it matter? Life is short."

He laughs like a sob, burying himself against me.


End file.
